Shattered Lake Prison.
"If you've been hurt enough, use a pair of hands to cut clean through yesterday's curse..."
Staring at the top-up screen on the light curtain, Yaxiu fell into deep thought.
Yesterday's Void Realm exploration hadn't yielded much. Yaxiu had finally managed to find a promising area, only to discover a Fishcleaver Dragon lurking inside.
He and the Sword Princess had fought with everything they had, but in the end failed to kill it. The Fishcleaver Dragon had cunningly feigned an all-or-nothing suicidal stance before diving straight into the water. Before escaping, it hadn't forgotten to pop out two farts—and sloppy, wet farts at that, carrying sorcery spirits with them.
Thus, Yaxiu and the Sword Princess were forced to catch the dragon's farts in utter humiliation, watching helplessly as it vanished into the white mist.
Low damage, maximum disrespect.
Once again, the Void Realm had given Yaxiu a harsh lesson. A sorcerer's living environment was truly brutal; no wonder the death row inmates didn't seem to care that they couldn't enter the Void Realm. The Void Realm really was a place where hard work didn't guarantee success, but giving up was guaranteed to feel so easy.
The difference between reality and the Void Realm was that reality was a trash pay-to-win game dominated by whales, while the Void Realm was a trash gacha game dominated by lucky bastards. For an ordinary sorcerer, the gameplay experience consisted of getting beaten black and blue by reality, then trampled mercilessly by the Void Realm, thoroughly tasting the bitter unfairness of the world.
The two sorcery spirits the Fishcleaver Dragon had farted out were nothing special either, so Yaxiu naturally took them to convert into cash for in-game purchases. After all, a masochistic player like him who started reality on hell difficulty could only rely on paying to change his fate.
The problem arose when he went to top up Aurora's Sorcerer Handbook—Yaxiu suddenly discovered that a one-winged sorcery spirit was now worth only 8 points!
Just two days ago, it was clearly worth 10 points!
What, did the game system patch its Apple payment channel and start charging me the Apple tax?
Five sorcery spirits only credited him with 40 points—a full 20% cut!
Yet Yaxiu had no way to complain or inquire. It wasn't that the game system had failed to patch the complaint module; it was that his company's games had never included a complaint module in the first place...
However, Yaxiu had a faint suspicion: it was probably tied to his own strength.
After crossing the Vortex, his Silver Wings were already more than half formed. As his sorcery power grew, the power of his sorcery spirits naturally increased as well. For him and the Sword Princess, the difficulty of Void Realm exploration had plummeted. The most obvious proof was that on the Void Realm map, favorable areas appeared far more frequently, while hazardous areas showed up only once in a while.
Once his Silver Wings fully unfurled, Yaxiu might achieve sorcery spirit freedom, harvesting seven or eight spirits every night and completely breaking the game system. The first thing he'd do every morning upon waking would be a ten-pull gacha to test his luck.
But this was clearly impossible.
Even if Yaxiu's brain had lost its imagination after years of corporate drudgery, his daily mental bandwidth squandered on deciding what to eat for lunch, he still knew this game system was fundamentally twisted. There was no way it would leave him such an obvious loophole.
Clearly, to prevent numerical inflation from collapsing the game, the system's solution was: diminishing returns.
Or rather, a taxation mechanism.
Yaxiu estimated that once he advanced to Two Wings, the value of a one-winged sorcery spirit would drop to 5 points or even lower. And by the time he unfurled Three Wings, a one-winged spirit would become so worthless he wouldn't even bother picking it up off the ground.
Yaxiu strongly suspected that the game's selling point was something like "100% Free: Full Sorcery Spirit Buyback!" where every spirit farmed could be directly converted into top-up currency, giving players the illusion that "this game is so generous!"
Yet as a player grew stronger, the price of the low-tier spirits they farmed would decrease. To increase farming efficiency, one had to pursue higher-tier spirits... In the end, every player's daily income hovered around the same level. And as everyone knew, giving free money to everybody was the same as giving free money to nobody. Therefore, this taxation mechanism functioned as an extra supplement to the daily check-in system, effectively boosting player retention and online playtime.
"So this is 'with great power comes great taxation'..." Yaxiu sighed, heading out for breakfast.
As for the newly acquired 40 points, he naturally left them untouched for now. He had already purchased the 30-point origin crystal pack and lost the first-recharge double bonus, so his next modest goal was the 98-point "Pile of Origin Crystals Pack."
Entering the central hall, Yaxiu was surprised to find a large crowd gathered. Near the front, someone was even arguing with the prison guards. Yaxiu's heart leaped with joy—was a prison riot actually about to break out?
He squeezed to the front and saw the hall's light curtain was broadcasting the news—
Damn, how sarcastic was this broadcast! What death row inmate would ever watch this kind of news!
Looking closer, Yaxiu noticed a bulletin posted beside the light curtain:
"I—I'm a two-winged composite sorcerer with my Golden Wings fully unfurled! I've completely mastered both the fire and wind sorcery factions, and I even know the miracle 'Extinction Dragon Poem'! Why didn't you pick me?"
"And me! I'm a two-winged gun sorcerer and a former member of the Blood Moon Hunters! Flawless background, illustrious battle record—I only ended up in Shattered Lake because of one wrong step! Any way you look at it, you should pick an ex-hunter sorcerer like me!"
"Even if you reject us, you have to give a reason! There's no quota limit, so on what grounds are you denying me the right to volunteer?"
"I don't actually care about getting out of prison! I just want to do something to contribute to society! Why stop me from serving my country?"
The prison guard seated behind the registration desk maintained an icy, aloof expression, paying no heed to the wailing of these applicants. Coldly, he said, "Next."
Yaxiu wanted to sign up too, but unfortunately he wasn't even a Two-Winged Sorcerer, lacking even the qualifications to submit a resume. Yet, unwilling to walk away, he lingered to one side, watching wistfully without knowing what he was waiting for.
"What a wonderful opportunity, yet you can't grasp it. Right now, you look just like a vulgar man who knows he has no right to court a woman, yet clings to the hope that a beautiful lady will suddenly go blind and agree to spend a wonderful night with you."
Yaxiu glanced at Igola. "You're not signing up?"
"I applied, but unfortunately I wasn't selected." Igola looked toward the crowded registration desk and shook his head. "Though it's fortunate they passed on me; I have zero confidence I could survive a special mission like this."
"You know what the special mission is?"
"I don't know, but I can deduce it. I've been observing: the selected death row inmates are basically all sorcerers majoring in water, earth, wind, or light factions."
"What's special about those sorcery factions?"
"Let me put it more plainly—the charges against the chosen inmates almost always include these: repeatedly resisting arrest, long-term evasion, extensive criminal records, and operating across multiple cities."
Repeatedly resisting arrest, long-term evasion?
Yaxiu recalled the terrifying strength of the Bloodmad Hunters from the Sin Hunting Hall and immediately caught on. "They're experts at fleeing?"
"Exactly." Igola nodded. "This special mission shouldn't require combat or social skills. What it demands of the volunteers is abundant experience in evasion and survival. However you look at it, it's an exceptionally dangerous reconnaissance mission. I have to admit, every person in Kaimeng City who meets those two criteria is sitting right here inside Shattered Lake Prison."
"Still, I had no idea missions offering amnesty to death row inmates even existed," Yaxiu said. "Does this happen often? Have inmates ever walked out the front door in broad daylight through tasks like this before?"
"How could that be? I've been here for over a year, and this is the first time I've seen it. I asked around among some old lifers just now, and they've never seen an amnesty mission like this either. Past special missions awarded a few contribution points at most."
Igola narrowed his eyes slightly. "Speaking of which, a proposal offering amnesty to death row convicts is something the Order Organization would never pass, and the council would bicker over it for ages... Just how enormous of an interest could compel even the Order Organization to approve such a perilous bill?"
"The Order Organization?" Yaxiu caught the unfamiliar term.
"You don't know? It's a faction in the council, locked in opposition to the Human Rights Association. The Human Rights Association advocates that humanity is an end in itself—all laws and regulations must aim to protect people, and humans cannot be consumed like disposable items. The Order Organization, on the other hand, advocates for absolute order—laws must be rigidly enforced, with no regard for human desires or emotions.
"Most bills can only pass once a balance is struck between the two organizations. Take the Blood Moon Trial, for instance: its current format was established only after years of debate between the Order Organization and the Human Rights Association. The Order Organization wanted convicts dead as swiftly as possible, while the Human Rights Association believed they deserved a chance at rehabilitation. The Blood Moon Trial allows certain inmates to stay alive to contribute societal value while handing the power of judgment to the general public, which earned unanimous approval from the councilors."
Igola glanced at Yaxiu. "In that 'extra-spicy' Blood Moon Trial of yours the day before yesterday, the Order Organization definitely played a major hand... Oh, I forgot to mention, City Councilor Professor Xilin is a member of the Order Organization."
Hearing this, Yaxiu's urge to break out burned even hotter—with such a major villain pulling strings in politics on the outside, the law could no longer serve as Yaxiu's shield.
"So what exactly is this special mission?"
"Benefits substantial enough to silence the Order Organization, recruiting volunteers skilled in evasion and survival, plus the approaching shift between spring and summer... After thinking it through, there is probably only one possibility."
Igola said, "A stable Void Realm turbulence has appeared in Kaimeng City, and inside it there might be a Void Realm passage leading to another nation.
"Locating a stable Void Realm passage would be an achievement worthy of pleasing the Blood Moon itself."
......
...
Jialesi, Sword Flower University.
Except for Ingrid, who had gone out for an early-morning run, the other three were in the dormitory.
Glancing at Adele sleeping with her doll hugged tight, Lois got out of bed, grabbed an ice spring water spray, and fiercely blasted her own face. Her whole body snapped to attention—a waking skincare ritual that bordered on torture.
Sonia was already in the bathroom showering, so Lois could only wash her face, slather on a thick layer of jelly face mask, and squeeze in some reading—sheet masks were out of the question, or the serum would drip down her chin.
To become a water sorcerer as quickly as possible and reclaim the 'Surge' sorcery spirit from Sonia, Lois had no choice but to compress her skincare and makeup routine, squeezing out every spare second to study and cultivate.
Whenever this crossed her mind, Lois felt a mix of stubborn resentment and begrudging admiration toward Sonia—how could a scheming bitch exist in this world who had time to dress up and still learned at such blistering speed?
Suddenly, her miracle bracelet vibrated slightly. Lois tapped it to check and found it was a message from the meteorological observatory.
Chapter 75